


but then I found you

by Everlind



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Humanstuck, M/M, Memory Loss, Polyamory, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Rating and Tags will be adjusted as required for later chapters, Road Trip, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-03-08 18:59:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3219872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everlind/pseuds/Everlind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dark skin, dark hair, dark angry brows. Stocky and closed off, you’ve never seen him before, but you know him, you <i>know him</i> and something in your chest wrenches in the exact same way the day you met Jade even as something in his face breaks.</p><p>“Oh,” he swallows. “Oh, shit. <i>John</i>.”</p><p>And then he’s holding you and you’re crying and you don’t know why. It’s okay, you think he might be crying, too. How did he know your name?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

You find him at a party you didn’t even want to go to.

At some lost hour of the night you’re stumbling along through the thick, sticky press of bodies and wondering what the hell you’re doing here. It’s not that you don’t like hanging out or meeting new people, you totally do! You’re great at making friends and you’re pretty awesome at finding out what makes complete strangers laugh. Seeing a surprised laugh tumble past their lips is like a small victory and the best game is to find out how to make it happen. This right here, however, it’s just the stench of sweat and beer and smoke and weed and faces you’ve seen once or maybe twice blurring together. 

You want to go home, but you need to find Jade first. If you leave without telling her she’ll think you got kidnapped, freak out and strangle everyone who she thinks might’ve laid a finger on you. Which is one of the reasons you feel pretty safe surrounded by strangers, actually, even though you’re drunk and not entirely sure where you are anymore. Everybody thinks you’re Jade’s little brother (you’re not) and nobody’s willing to risk the world of hurt they’d be in for pissing her off. She once whacked someone unconscious with a lacrosse stick for picking on that dude who cruises around campus in a wheelchair (Tavris? Tarros? you can’t remember).

 For an hour or so it’s a haze of laughing faces and dancing when the people around you are dancing before going oh whoops, you’re supposed to find Jade and wandering on. It’s fun, it’s kind of nice, and you teeter between comfortably blitzed and sick to your belly, until the latter suddenly wins out and you  _need fresh air right now_.

You charge through clusters of chatting people, hand clapped over your mouth, somehow find a door that leads outside. Burst into the cold October night, gasping desperately for clean air.

Okay.

Breathe in.

Okay. 

Breathe out.

OKAY NOT OKAY

You lurch towards the wooden banister and hang on to it for dear life as your body heaves _you’re going to be sick_ —

“Great, just what I needed to complete my night! Some drunken frat boy gracing my shitty shoes with his beer cultivated vomit. What the raging fuck have I ever done to deserve this?! I told you I didn’t want to come, but you made me and you better be prepared to apply your grotesque mouth muscle to my sneakers to make up for this disaster.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Wow, he looks in bad shape.”

“Yeah, he really fucking does and you’re both just standing there waiting to see if he’s going to pitch over the porch and break his scrawny neck, huh?  _Fine_.”

Footsteps. You shiver weakly, even as your skin becomes slimy with sweat and sickness. Someone toes your ankle.

“Hey. Are you gonna puke any time soon, or just swoon around like a wet rag?”

The question is rough and grudging, yet oddly sincere… somewhere, a corner of your mind tingles. You look up.

Dark skin, dark hair, dark angry brows. Stocky and closed off, you’ve never seen him before, but you know him, you  _know him_  and something in your chest wrenches in the exact same way the day you met Jade even as something in his face breaks.

“Oh,” he swallows. “Oh, shit.  _John_.” 

And then he’s holding you and you’re crying and you don’t know why. It’s okay, you think he might be crying, too. How did he know your name? 

“How do you-“ you manage.

“—all alone, figured it just fucking dumped me in a world without—“ 

“I don’t—“

“—looked everywhere for you guys.”

“Jade, I found Jade,” you’re telling him, you don’t know why only that it matters.

He makes a wounded noise low in his chest. “Jade’s here?”

“Yeah,” you nod, still sick and giddy and light and absolutely terrified and you’re holding onto his biceps so hard his flesh wells up between your fingers. “She’s here, she’s— what’s your…?”

He doesn’t get to answer, because just then one of his friends approaches. “Karkat, do you know this kid?”

Karkat.

 _Karkat_.

Strange name. You’re turning it silently over on your tongue as Karkat responds in fast, harsh— Spanish, you think? You don’t know, does it even matter when nothing about him is right, when he’s… not… you can’t… 

“Stop crying, shit, you’re not supposed to look pitiable,” he grumbles, mopping at your cheeks with the fleshy part of his hand. “Where are your glasses?”

Pitiable is not flattering, not at all, but your face goes hot and your chest draws tight and you’re so confused, you never had to wear glasses, you’ve got no idea what he’s talking about.

That’s when Jade finds you. “John, you had better not be dead—  _hey!_  LET HIM GO YOU PERVERT!”

Karkat turns, you turn with him to look at her. “Jade,” he says and you can feel the rumble of her name in his chest against your shoulder. 

“Oh,” she breathes, like he stabbed her with it. Her hands rise to cover her mouth.

“It’s Karkat, Jade!” you supply, because you can tell that’s what she’s looking for. His name.

“Karkat,” Jade repeats. Laughs a little. Her cheeks are wet.

“Yeah, hi Harley,” and his body shakes against yours, even though he’s not laughing at all. “I found you.” 

Jade holds out a hand to him, and he takes it.

“About time, dumbass,” she says.


	2. Chapter 2

The sky is bright with daybreak when Jade suddenly exhales, chin dropping.

“I hurt people, didn’t I?” she says out of nowhere.

It aches to turn your head, you’re cold and stiff from sitting outside the whole night, and sore inside out from emotions besides. At least she’s warm against your side. On her right is Karkat, sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him. His fingers pluck idly at a patch of frayed denim, but there’s no answer. Which tells you enough.

Jade pulls her knees up high, jams her face against them.

You hate that you hardly remember, even after a whole night of talking. The feelings… those you have. You really fucking do. Looking at Karkat is difficult because you have years worth of emotions towards him —very bright and frightening emotions; grief among them, but you have no memories to help you make sense. It’s overwhelming.

You swallow.

“You did,” Karkat agrees softly. “It wasn’t your fault. You were possessed.”

Jade snorts. “How convenient.” 

“Hey,” you rock your shoulder into hers, then extract a hand out of the kangaroo pouch of your hoodie. Hold it out to her, palm up. Jade is always,  _always_  hardest on herself. After a moment, she unclamps a hand and clasps yours. You lace fingers together.

Karkat’s back has gone ramrod straight and he’s glaring at Jade. “No, see here, you don’t ever get to fucking doubt yourself, alright? You were amazing. You saved several goddamn  _worlds_  from destruction. Literally. Repeatedly, because you are just that wonderful. There’s nothing you could’ve done to prevent it, she had these psychic powers of cheatastic proportions, it was fucking ridiculous. Besides, you weren’t the only one who went grimbark.”

Both you and Jade lift your heads in unison to blink at him.

“Grim…”

“…bark?” you finish. “As in woof woof?”

Karkat rolls his eyes at you. “Yes, as in quote, unquote ‘woof woof’, Egbert, you goddamn genius.” To Jade, he adds more gruffly: “You had dog ears.”

For a single brilliant moment you could swear you see them perk in delight. Jade adores furries. She has a fursona. It’s named Becquerel. Yeah. It’s always been this weird Jade-thing you know? Sort of whacky and occasionally embarrassing, but now you’re relieved to see that brightness in her eyes. She glows like that, like a miniature sun (—green, throbbing light—) and you wholly believe she saved worlds. 

Karkat’s expression whenever he looks at her, well. There’s longing there, plain and stark. You think he might have a bit of a crush on her, or always has had. Maybe they were together in that life, in the game, in sburb and he’s scared to tell her. Even though the three of you sat together all night, with Karkat talking and talking and talking until his raw voice became even thicker and more battered than it already is, you don’t think he’s hardly scratched the surface of the whole story.

You wouldn’t believe him, either, if you didn’t  _feel…_  but you do. Because come on now: magic aliens? Really? Pfft! No way, right?

“Did I hurt John?” Jade asks him, a little more subdued. (—big and white and sticking straight up from her dark hair, now drooping—)

Karkat actually coughs out a laugh, seemingly taking himself by surprise, because he presses knuckles to his mouth. Shakes his head. “No, shit, you gave it your best, but mister grade A idiot over there zipped through reality like a deflating balloon, all the while wetting himself in pure mirth over the naughty naughty noises he made.”

“I could fly, right?” you interject and you think you (—blue blue wide open, free—)

“Not like you were the only one,” Karkat mutters. 

“Oh.”

“But you were pretty good at it,” he allows, not exactly smiling. “Just a little.” He mimes just how much by leaving a barely visible gap between his thumb and index finger.

You can’t help but smile, and smile wide, because  _flying_ , oh wow. If you could pick any superpower you’d pick flying, even if it isn’t the most useful one. You could fly. _You could fly._  Could. Can’t anymore. Your whole chest goes taut with wanting, a little like hours ago, when you first saw Karkat’s face but still different. 

“I wish I could remember,” you say, and hate how you sound just a little miserable.

When you were nine, you climbed the stairs all the way up to the roof of the school and tried to jump. Everybody thought you were trying to commit suicide. Your father put you in therapy; and you understand that! Well,  _now_. You really really do, but you were so angry with him, dammit! You resented him for years and still get a little bit angry when you allow yourself to think about it, because the therapist never did believe that you meant flying as in, well, just that: flying. 

Not as an internalised need to escape somehow.

You’d been so convinced you could do it, too. Jade remembers, she used to wait right outside the door for you until those stupid, horrible therapy sessions were over. She pulls her fingers free, wraps an arm around your shoulders instead.

Karkat knows he’s missing out on something, because his dark eyes flick from your face to hers, linger on her arm protectively around your shoulders. You don’t know how to include him in this. You don’t know if you can ever understand what he remembers. Suddenly panic lunges inside of you, leaving you winded and cold.

“Don’t leave,” you blurt, rising to your knees. “Okay? Just. Don’t go.”

He stares at you, lips a little slack and brows confused. Briefly you get distracted by the long sweep of his lashes, the pinch in his brows. Your chest hurts.

“John-“ Jade begins.

“We should look for them,” you say, mind racing and quickly inventing reasons to make him stay. “Like a road trip! Just the three of us, until we’ve found every single one of them.”

As the words leave your mouth you’re suddenly  _convinced_  this is something you have to do. You need to find them. Your friends. Your enemies. Everyone. Maybe you’ll remember, in the end. The need for… for… whatever this is, all of it, you don’t care, it’s all you can do not to bowl him over right now and hang on and never ever let go again.

You’re kneeling there, practically vibrating with trying to keep it all in, and Karkat’s looking at you and you don’t know him, only that he isn’t  _right_  somehow and yet he’s completely perfect exactly the way he is. Jade’s fingers are curled through the belt loop of your jeans, the way she sometimes does when the two of you are up high somewhere, a bridge or a mountain, like she worries you might try to fly again.

All he says is:

“Okay.”

You sit down on your ass in surprise, hard. “What? Really?”

Jade’s eyes are wide and shocked.

“Yeah,” Karkat nods. “Let’s do it. I… shit, I’d like that.”

There’s a moment where you’re expecting Jade to be the voice of reason, say no John, don’t be silly, what about college? Instead she stands up, brushes down her skirt in a brisk, business like manner. “I’m in,” she says.

Both of them look at you, and you feel something you don’t understand at all. All you know is that you’d follow them to the end of the earth.

(you already have)

You leap to your feet, clumsily hug Jade with how happy you suddenly are and then stand before Karkat and hold out both hands to help him up. For a moment he just stares at your open palms, throat working. Then he puts his hands in yours. They’re warm and rough and fit wonderfully against yours.

You pull him up.


	3. Chapter 3

“You know what I miss?”

You turn your head, raise your brows for him to go on.

Karkat’s eyes catch yours for a moment, then glance off to the side, like he might be embarrassed. “My horns.”

You raise your brows higher. “Weren’t they like, I don’t know, tiny?”

Karkat smacks your shoulder hard with the palm of his hand, furious, but his face is so scrunched up and hilarious, like he’s trying to shit out a lemon and you just gotta laugh.

“John, if you make a dick joke I will throw you down the side of this mountain, see if I don’t.” 

“I wasn’t gonna,” you protest, still laughing even as he half-flattens you sideways into the grass to pummel loose fists into your chest until you’re so breathless with laughter you’re gasping for air. His skin is hot, nearly blistering. Your body buzzes with it even after he draws back.

It’s getting worse.  

Face throbbing warm and glad for the cover of night, you prop yourself up on an elbow. Watch his profile. The perpetual frown, his tired eyes, the crooked line of his nose, the curve of his mouth. You’re so attracted to him it’s not even funny. No, seriously, it really really isn’t! Because he’s with Jade. Yeah. Off limits. No touchy. It’d be easier if looking at him wasn’t like seeing the sun come up.

You’re in love with him, and you don’t know what to do.

What can you do? You’d never, ever hurt Jade ever ever  _ever_  cross your heart and hope to die, pinky promise! Besides, Karkat seems happy with her. So. Welp, haha. 

Karkat tips his head back, stares at the starry sky. It is endless tonight, vast and dark and studded with flickering white pinpricks. Both of you are sitting outside on a crumbling old log overlooking the cliff. The motel you’ve checked into for tonight is a gaudy neon smear down the road. Jade took the pickup to the gas station you passed just a couple of miles ago, and the two of you are waiting for her to return safely before calling it quits for today.

You still haven’t found anyone else. You’re not discouraged though! Nope. You’ve got a good feeling about this. 

It’s nice to be alone with him, but also weird enough you kinda wish Jade was here anyway. Even though you’ve been on the road for months, you’ve hardly ever been completely alone with him. Your days are just one big blur of idle conversation and the purr of the engine. The evenings, whenever the three of you are lucky enough to hit a motel, well. If anyone ever sleeps alone, it’s you. So they can have a little. You know. Whatever.

“I could make you a pair out of a tiara and some modelling clay?” you try, only half-jokingly.

Karkat doesn’t even deign to answer that one. At least if you don’t count his elbow connecting with your ribs. Where it stays after, just natural pressure, because he’s still so close from the scuffle a moment ago. A long line of warmth, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder. Nice. You close your eyes.

“Whenever I dream…” Karkat begins, but then stops just as fast. 

You give him a moment, then rock your weight into him. “Whenever you dream…”

Harsh exhale. “When I dream, it’s always me. As a troll.”

“Oh,” you go, stupidly. Weirdly enough? You think you’ve known, somehow. Karkat’s lived a whole separate life from that one, he’s human, but there’s times when he is most emphatically  _not_. There’s half wild, alien mannerisms you notice once in while, especially right after he’s woken up. That’s okay, it’s what makes him Karkat.

“It’s not like I even fucking dream about The Game” -the way it rolls off his tongue makes it heavy with capital letters- “it’s just me, doing everyday shit. But I look-“ he trails off. “It’s so fucking stupid.”

“No, it’s not,” you protest.

“I miss being a troll.”

You’ve tried to remember. It shouldn’t be that difficult, the dove gray skin, black hair, yellow sclera. Horns. Karkat says he looked different, that his muscle sat differently on his bones, that his jaw hinged further. His irises were supposed be red, but they’re dark brown now. Try as you might, you can’t imagine it. Jade does. The more time she spends with him, the more she seems to remember. It’s probably why it’s better for him, for them, to have each other, right?

Karkat’s still talking. “Like, I used to think that you were all goddamn idiots and—no okay I was fucking right about that, but I figured that your one quadrant human love simply was what it was because you were too emotionally stunted to acknowledge the fundamental differences between flushed and pitched, or flush and pale. Even pale and ashen was a mess, I couldn’t figure out why you didn’t seem to… see what was right in front of your underdeveloped noses.”

Frowning, he trails off. The hand he was gesturing with hangs mid-air, slowly furling closed.

“But,” you prompt.

“It’s not the same, not really. It’s not better or worse, just… fucking different. Like pitch was this thrill. You’d feel furious and exhilarated and so pissed off, there was this energy which you’d just have you going back for  _more_.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s just so weird, man,” you chuckle. “I can’t imagine wanting to kiss someone I hated.”

“I know you don’t,” he says simply. Rubs a hand across his tired face, before allowing a small self-deprecating laugh. “I used to have the biggest pitch crush on you.”

“Oh,” you blurt stupidly. Feels like he kicked you in the chest. “Haha.”

Used to.

He hated you.

Wow okay. That explains a lot, you suppose.

You try to swallow and find that you can’t, so you just stare at your hands knotting together in your lap and very carefully don’t blink.

“Hey,” Karkat says, and then he’s kissing you.

His mouth is warm. Your pulse roars through head in blind, utterly terrified speed. You’re paralysed.

Karkat pulls back abruptly. “Sorry,” he says. “I just thought that… the way you looked at me—shit, I—“

You sway into him until you can catch his lips, chaste, and Karkat exhales shakily before lifting a hand and cupping the side of your neck, thumb at the edge of your jaw. His kisses are covetous, wanting, warm and real as he works his mouth in languid open-close nips against yours, until the wet edge of his lip catches slow and sweet and so fucking perfect you can feel the throb for more in you groin.

Shit!

You shove him away.

“Shit!” you curse, springing to your feet and dancing an agitated circle on the spot. Why did you do that? (because you wanted to, damn you just really  _wanted_  to—) 

No, no excuse. Oh, god,  _Jade_. How could you. How  _could_  you?!

There’s an ache blooming in your throat. Finally understand what it means to loathe yourself. 

Jade.

_Jade_.

Jade.

You cover your face with your hands.

“Jesus what a reaction,” Karkat spits out. He’s slowly pushing himself upright, you shoved hard enough to topple him off the log. He moves as though his joins ache. He’s not looking at you.

You kind of want to punch him because how can’t he— you’re indignant suddenly, outraged for Jade, how does he fucking  _dare_ — you’re going to kick his ass, and kick it hard, because Jade’s your… your… you don’t even have a word for it, just that you love her and she’s been by your side for practically your whole damn life and you’d tear down the moon for her to keep her safe and this asshole calls himself her boyfriend and is kissing you behind her back?

…okay so you let him and, and kind of went back for more. Fine, you’re just as bad. Worse, actually. 

“John,” he repeats, anger creeping into your name.

You round on him. “Don’t. Okay? We have to tell Jade.”

You don’t want to tell Jade. You have to. She’ll hate you. Well, you hate you, so that makes two. That rhymed. Oh god.

“Oh my fucking-“ Karkat grabs your shoulders, and shakes you a little. “Is that why you’re freaking out like a prima donna? John” —you’re pushing at his chest with both hands— “John for pity’s sake, how do you not understand that we’ve been waiting for you?”

The world slows down. You’re not sure if you want it to keep on spinning.

“Let go,” you snap at him, and he does, instantly. Backs a step away with his hands aloft. You don’t understand the expression on his face.

His throat rolls as he swallows. “I can’t fucking believe you’d think I’d— I’d  _never_ ,” he composes himself with difficulty. “I’d never.”

“Yeah, that’s nice buddy,” you tell him, hating how your voice screws up high and tight like you’re thirteen again. “How am I supposed to know that? You can’t just- kiss me and then sort of inform me this is a three person deal and—“

“We’ve been trying for months! We’ve been throwing hints at you like it was fucking rice at a wedding and why the hell not, seems you’re in a perpetual state of matrimony with your own simpleminded state of existence. Like complete peewees, apparently, because it all just flew clear over your empty, air filled head! We figured you just weren’t interested so we never— and then you looked at me like that and I, stupid idiot that I am, thought-“

“I do,” you say softly.

“-you wanted… wait. Do what?”

“To kiss you.”

“Oh.” The furious energy colouring his voice and movements leaks out of him, until he’s standing there and frowning a little. 

“I don’t know if I want to kiss Jade,” you admit heavily.

“I… see?” he answers, plainly confused. “This is where I’m not following. When we first met, I thought you and Jade-“

You interject quickly: “We weren’t.”

“Yeah, I figured it out by now. Thanks,” he snarls back sarcastically. “Don’t you want to or—“

“ _I don’t know_ , Karkat, okay?” you yell at him. “I don’t know. It’s Jade and I just. Don’t know. Okay?!”

“Okay,” he answers, making an effort to soften his intonation. “Okay. I didn’t mean to, fuck. I fucked this up so bad,” he winds his hands through his hair and tugs at it.

He kind of did, but you don’t point it out. Your head is heavy, your thoughts jumbled. “Can we just go back now?”

A nod, eyes downcast.

As luck would have it, Jade’s just hopping out of the pick-up with a plastic bag dangling off her arm. She smiles wide and bright when she sees you both approaching for all of two seconds, before it slides skewed and sideways into concern.

“What happened? What’s wrong? John, are— are you having an attack?” she all but yells, dropping the groceries and rushing towards you. 

You catch her wrists and hold her at bay. “No, Jade, I’m fine.”

“Do you need your inhaler?”

Karkat makes a noise as though he’s been stepped on. 

The first time he saw you have an attack he’d gone ashen with shock, had stared at you in a way you don’t ever, ever want to see again. Said it was because you were the Heir of Breath, you were the god of the wind, and now you needed something to help pull air into your lungs. You actually just thought it was kinda funny, you know? Ironic. (—wait, dav—)

“I said I’m fine,” you grit out. 

Jade blinks at your tone, then looks at Karkat from over your shoulder. “Did you two have a fight,” the brusque way it falls out of her mouth makes it not a question.

A loud, cutting laugh. “HAH! No, even better,” Karkat sneers. “I kissed him.”

“Ah,” Jade hums. “You-“

“Yeah,” Karkat answers.

“And you said-“

“I did.”

“Oh. Hmmm.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Can I go now?” you ask petulantly.

“Nope!” Jade goes. “You’re not going anywhere mister. You’re grounded. In our room.”

Wonderful. Just great. 

“Jade,” you say softly and you hate how you have trouble meeting her eyes. It’s always been so easy with her, you never wanted to question it and now you do. “I kinda need some me-time now, alright? Some John time. By myself. Alone. In a not sexy way.”

She looks at you, bright eyes intense and beautiful. “Alright,” she says eventually and steps away until your fingers leave the skin of her arms.

You try a smile. “Thanks. I just need to think about this, a little.”

“A little?” she echoes, grinning playfully.

Eyeroll. “Yeah, a little.”

“Okay,” she nods.

You take the key out of your pocket, and turn away.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are appreciated!


End file.
